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PREVIEW | Pianist Ricker Choi Talks About His Artivism & Upcoming Concert

By Anya Wassenberg on October 9, 2024

Pianist Ricker Choi in concert (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Pianist Ricker Choi in concert (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Ricker Choi is a pianist by inclination, and a passionate supporter of political prisoners and victims of political oppression. He’s combined both in an upcoming multimedia concert on November 2.

Choi’s concert series looks to draw attention to important global issues, even as it celebrates great music. Several artists will perform various works that revolve around global issues of freedom and oppression.

Choi calls his practice artivism, and the proceeds go to related charities and agencies. He talked to LvT about the show.

The Program

  • Ricker Choi: his own piano composition “Hong Kong Rhapsody”, with his own images of Hong Kong’s 2019 protest projected on a 36-foot screen;
  • Performance artist Loretta Lau: a piece commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the sacrifices of the Hong Kongers of the time;
  • Ukrainian soprano Antonina Ermolenko and pianist Oksana Hahn: Ukrainian music with a theme of freedom;
  • Pianist Chloe Sun: music by Chopin;
  • Ricker Choi: protest music from Iran, arranged for solo piano by Ricker.

The concert’s proceeds go to charity; 70% of net proceeds will be donated to Bonham Tree Aid 細葉榕人道支援基金, which provides funds for political prisoners, and the remaining 30% will be donated to Amnesty Canada.

Guest Artists

Soprano Antonina Ermolenko

Ukrainian-Canadian soprano Antonina Ermolenko earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the Glenn Gould School of the RCM, followed by a Master’s Degree from Hunter College, CUNY, in New York.

She has sung with orchestras such as Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Thüringen Philharmonie, and the Johann Strauss Orchester Wiesbaden, and at venues like the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, and the Ekhof Theater Gotha, among others.

Her performing calendar includes a mix of operatic and concert roles. She most recently performed in Toronto in her role debut as Emilia Marty in Věc Makropulos with the Canadian Institute of Czech Music.

Performance Artist Loretta Lau

Loretta Lau was born in British Hong Kong, where she worked as a high school art teacher for seven years as the city was transferred back to China after the period of British colonization. The tumultuous time led her to leave for Europe, where she settled in Prague.

The 2019 Hong Kong protests left a mark on Lau as well. She became the director of 我地 NGO DEI in 2021, a Hong Kong art and culture centre based in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

She began her journey as a performing artist in 2019 with public art performances that delve into the tensions between political and personal identities, and has since exhibited her work throughout Europe.

Pianist Oksana Hahn

After an 11 year program at the Mukola Lysenko Special Music School for Gifted Youth, Oksana Hahn studied at the Kiev State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she received her Bachelor’s degree. She began a performing career in Ukraine and Eastern Europe before immigrating to Canada at the age of 23.

After settling in Edmonton, she established a busy career performing as well as teaching as part of the Faculty of Alberta College Conservatory of Music. Oksana moved to Toronto in 2000, and is now a faculty member in the piano department of the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Paintings by Ricker Choi (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Paintings by Ricker Choi (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Ricker Choi: The Interview

“I work in risk management,” Choi says. “My passion is music. I started playing about 12 years old.” By 2012, he had started performing benefit concerts in aid of various causes. “When I practice something, I want to finish that by performing in front of people.”

Positive responses kept him going. He’s also an avid painter.

His concerns and emotions over the massive protests that launched in 2019 in Hong Kong and other places in the world began to give a focus to his work. “That’s what keeps me going.”

He talks about that initial spark of inspiration in a statement:

“My first painting for Hong Kong was inspired by the events of July 21, 2019, when the white shirt mafia collaborated with the Hong Kong police to viciously attack civilians. This incident shook us all, signaling the collapse of the rule of law in Hong Kong.”

His activities have even earned him an unfavourable mention on a Chinese media outlet. He’s performed his concerts to unite people across diasporas in the UK, the Hague, and in Vancouver as well as in Toronto.

Musically, he says his biggest influences are composer/performers like Chopin and Franz Liszt. He mentions that Chopin made championing his Polish homeland in music a strong element of his life and work as an exile in Paris.

“I took that as my inspiration.”

Programming for the concert took a kind of organic path, united by a common thread of a shared theme: freedom from oppression.

Ricker describes his own composition “Hong Kong Rhapsody” as veering between neoromantic and contemporary in terms of style. His goal, as he explains it, is to convey what happened to the people of Hong Kong in 2019 through music.

“The theme of my concert is the people united,” he says. He includes Frederic Rzewski’s iconic song “The people united will never be defeated” in the program, pointing out that the song was often sung in solidarity against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

“I find the power of music, especially classical music and the piano, is very convenient to connect with people,” he says.

The thematic focus is global in scope. “I have friends from Iran and the Ukraine,” he explains. Through them, he was introduced to works like Iranian protest songs, and the Ukrainian music that will also be part of a concert.

Pianist Oksana Hahn is one of those friends. “I knew her for more than 20 years, and we always talked about collaborations,” Ricker says.

Afterward his concerts, Ricker holds a Q&A session. He says that some people ask him, why make the music political?

“A lot of people hear Chopin music, and love it, but I don’t think a lot of people realize that a lot of it is political,” he says. “I can talk about it,” he adds, mentioning the failed Polish revolution that was crushed decisively by Imperial Russia in 1832. “They ask me 30 minutes of questions [because they’re interested].”

Mixing traditional classical pieces with his own neoclassical compositions tends to draw audiences into both genres. The immersive concert includes projections of Ricker’s paintings, and a powerful performance piece by Loretta Lau.

  • Watch a trailer for the concert [HERE], and find out more details about A Concert on Humanity and Freedom at George Weston Recital Hall on November 2 [HERE].

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